Montauk Sportfishing Report 7/17/06

7/17/06

It?s hard to give a report this week, because in almost every case the state of the fishing depends on who I speak to. One
guy does great, and the next does lousy.

The bass fishing is OK I guess, but you can?t expect a charter with six anglers to catch their limit on a half day trip. There
are a lot of shorts around, and some decent fish. A lot of the trollers are using the big tubes to target bigger fish and
avoid smaller ones, and if they pass over the right fish it works out. If not, it doesn?t. Live porgies are working too, but
again if you don?t drift over the fish, you don?t catch. Also, porgies can be a little difficult to come by.

The fluke situation is somewhat the same. Some guys do good with some real nice fish, while others struggle and catch
lots and lots of shorts. One good thing is that the doggies seem to be getting scarcer, but not completely gone yet.

For the most part shark fishing is what we call ?one bite? fishing, although there are exceptions to that as well. The water
has gotten a little too toasty for the blue sharks, so you can?t expect to catch a lot of sharks. However what you are
likely to catch are makos or threshers. A good thing about shark fishing is that you don?t have to run very far. Much
more than fifteen to eighteen miles and you are just wasting fuel, and we all know how expensive that can be.

The school bluefins are still around, although catching one is not a sure thing. Then again, you could also catch a dozen
or so, although probably not be able to keep any. There is no hot spot as far as I know, and you can start fishing at the
800 line. A number of shark boats have caught them on the way to their shark spot, which as I said above is not very far
out.

I haven?t heard of any boats fishing out at the 500 line yet, but I suspect someone will be going out there this week. The
edge is producing a mixture of yellowfins, longfins and mahi, but it seems that the boats making that run haven?t
bothered to fish much inside of the drop-off.

If you would like to have these reports sent to you directly, just drop me a note at captgene@montauksportfishing.com.
For more information about fishing in Montauk, you can give me a call at 800 280 5565 or check out
http.//www.montauksportfishing.com.

Yesterday we went "far" and the water was dramatically different than 2 days prior when we were there!

2 days prior we slammed 12 Blues and 5 Makos.

Yesterday, the skunk......first time I have ever been skunked sharking!

The water was a GOOD 4 degrees warmer at 74-change, there were 2 whales we saw breaching (full breaches), Mahi-Mahi running thru passing by the stern, etc......but no sharks anywhere there to be found.

The warm water there seemed to have pushed the slug of sharks thru the area. I couldn't believe how much warmer/different the water was in just a day and a half!